Between Women
by Doctor Madwoman
Summary: Snapshots detailing the slow development of the shared life of Elsie Hughes and Sarah O'Brien.
1. The First Moment

Sarah sits at the edge of her bed, as she has done every night for nearly a month. She is idle, neither freeing her hair from its pins nor plucking at her rows of laces and buttons to make ready for bed. Her hands are busy only with each other, the fingers twinned absently around one another; her shoulders, usually so rigid, are sloping down, and her head is bowed. Elsie can guess at the sort of thoughts that are weighing it down.

It isn't uncommon, everyone knows it even if they're all too proper to come out and s_ay _it. There have been hundreds of maids over the ages, she is sure, who felt precisely as Sarah feels now and had perhaps about as much hope as she does.

The poor thing.

Elsie shifts across the space between them, her mattress pitching slightly, and she comes to rest with her front pressed flush with the lady's maid's back. Sarah twitches a little in surprise, but makes no move to acknowledge the housekeeper.

"There, now."

Elsie's hand fans out between Sarah's shoulder blades, which stand sharp even under layers of somber black and stiff corseting. She leans closer still, gently presses dry lips to the tender curve of Sarah's neck and breathes deeply.

"There, my darling girl, there's no need to hide in here."

Sarah smells of soap and new cloth and-faintest of all- the memory of some French perfume, and Elsie curls an arm around the younger woman's waist and draws her back. Sarah is trembling, the last vestiges of Miss O'Brien crumbling away.

She is tired, and she has served the Lady for so many years; Elsie can only imagine what sort of knotted, thorny thing she must be harboring in her heart after so long.

Under her palm, Sarah's stomach heaves and Elsie is close enough to hear her breath catch in her chest.

"Here to me, dear, come on."

Elsie sits back against the headboard of her narrow bed and Sarah follows, her face tilted down. With soft sounds and gentle hands Elsie guides her to her side, guides her until her head is tucked beneath her chin and Elsie's arm can comfortably encircle her shoulders.

Sarah sobs silently, body heaving, as she fists her hands in the cloth of Elsie's dress. The older woman wonders, sadly, if this is a skill all working class women learn. When had Sarah learned?

_Please, please not so early as I did._

Elsie pulls the pins from Sarah's hair and lets it spill over everything, lets it tangle around her wrist and fingers. She drapes her free arm over the younger woman's waist and rubs at her back. Sarah curls closer to her, allowing herself to cling just this once.

Elsie kisses Sarah's hair, her brow, the curve of her cheekbone, the miserable little twist of her lips, and strokes her hand over the back of head. She does not tell Sarah that everything will be well in the end, or that she ought to forget the Countess, or that she will always have _her_ because the first is a lie, the second an impossibility and the third rather beside the point.

Elsie Hughes says nothing, for she is not one to deal in false comforts.

Instead she holds Sarah until she's cried her fill for this single evening, and lets her go when she comes to herself, all damaged pride and tear-stained cheeks. Elsie can understand the terrible, terrifying void pride can leave in its wake, and lets Sarah slide off the bed to tend to her mental battlements in the comfort of her own room.

Sarah surprises her, though, when she reaches into Elsie's dresser to retrieve the extra nightgown she keeps there for her. Wordlessly she plucks at the buttons of her dress, shimmies out of it until it's pooled around her feet. Sighing, she turns and looks at Elsie with red-rimmed eyes, gestures to her corset.

"Well? The damn thing will hardly undo itself, will it?"

And so Elsie rises to attend and be attended to. They return to Elsie's bed and slide beneath the blankets, face to face in the dark, legs tangled. Elsie keeps one hand cupped over the back of Sarah's head as she eases tentatively into sleep, comforted by the warmth and softness of another.

Sarah mutters something that might be _thank you _or perhaps _good night_, and Elsie smiles.

* * *

This is just a place where I'm sticking my O'Hughes Tumblr drabbles- only vaguely in order for the time being, so please bear with me. As usual, none of places or characters belong to me.


	2. Down at the Bookshop

Nearly a year after she and Sarah have settled and set up their shop and set up their lives, it occurs to Elsie that they now have something that resembles leisure-time. When she points this out to Sarah, the younger woman immediately smirks and reaches for Elsie's buttons. And, yes, while this is a marvelous way to spend their free time, Elsie's mind has cravings just as her body does.

That is how they came to be in the dingy secondhand bookshop over on Fifth Street one August morning, the pair of them naturally gravitating towards the back of the store where prying eyes could not find them.

Elsie has developed a shameful fascination with Sarah's neck, and today the temptation is too much, even for their public environment. Sarah stifles a soft little chuckle as Elsie comes up behind her and winds her arms about her waist, her lips finding that tender place just under her ear.

"Steady now, filly- what would old Carson say if he could see you now?"

"Mr. Carson is not here, Miss O'Brien." Elsie growls, squeezing the younger woman's waist in a pointed way. She manages to steal a few furtive kisses before she releases Sarah, and they both wander off on their own quests; Sarah to the travelogues, Elsie to the history section.

Within half an hour Sarah meets Elsie in the English literature area, a book on Africa's fauna tucked under her arm.

"What's this you've got- Shakespeare?" Sarah mutters, her lips pursed as she scrutinizes the cover. Elsie frowns at her, feeling rather protective.

"And what's wrong with Shakespeare?"

"Nothin'- I was hoping you'd turn up something a bit more…interesting, is all."

Elsie wants to give her a good crack upside the head with the volume clutched in her hands, but a lifetime of rigid self-discipline holds her in check.

"I cannot believe my own ears! Have you ever even read Shakespeare?" she demands, and Sarah glares.

"Of course I 'ave, I'm not a bloody peasant! I've a favorite, too, as it happens."

"Oh?"

"_Hamlet_. It's a grand comedy, that one."

"Comedy? Everyone _died_!" Elsie cries, and Sarah hushes her with an imperious stare and slim finger over her lips. The younger woman smirks.

"Yeah, everyone died, an' I've never laughed harder."

"Dear God, but you're a disturbed one."

Sarah merely smirks again and saunters off into the shelves, leaving Elsie to mutter over _Julius Caesar_.

She finds Sarah again a quarter of an hour later, her entire attention given over to _Wuthering Heights_. Elsie stares, at first unable to comprehend, and then she, too, smiles smugly.

"A _romance_, Miss O'Brien? Why, there _is _a tender-young schoolgirl inside you after all."

Sarah eyes her, closes the book with a snap.

"Hardly a romance, Mrs. Hughes, and scarcely a joyful happening for pages on end. Refreshing, really."

Elsie touches her hip, rests her chin on Sarah's shoulder.

"So you like that all the main characters suffer, then?"

"Put it like that, an' I sound like a monster! What I like is that every idiot gets their comeuppance in the end. In a way, it's justice, which is the best sort of fiction around."

"I'm beginning to think that you've taken the wrong lessons from these books."

"Or perhaps _you_ have."

* * *

Anyone who didn't laugh once during _Hamlet _is lying.

None of the above mentioned books or characters belong to me.


	3. The Brood

"I never thought there would be so many of them." Said Elsie Hughes, her eyes on the teeming pack of little girls who all seemed bent on turning the kitchen into their private race track. Beside her, Sarah O'Brien smirked.

"I_ told_ you we 'ad an army built up."

"I hardly thought you were _serious._"

"When it comes to this lot, I scarcely need to exaggerate."

Sarah leaned back to watch as her nieces made another shrieking lap around the kitchen table, her laughter low and startling to Elsie's ears. The housekeeper-former, forever- sat and watched the younger woman, sensing this for what it was; an opportunity.

Among her kin Sarah's smiles were freer, more genuine than anything Elsie had received in Downton's halls. There was an ease about the younger woman she had never seen before, a contentedness that Sarah lacked when dashing up the stairs or brooding on the edge of Elsie's bed. She sat beside Elsie dressed in a crisp blouse and a skirt the color of wine, sure of herself and her place here.

"Careful, you little beasts, don't trample her!"

Sarah bounded out of her seat and Elsie saw that the smallest of the girls had taken a hard fall and was on the verge of tears. Sarah leaned over her and scooped her up into her arms, murmuring softly at the girl and casting a poisonous look at the rest of her nieces, who all shuffled nervously away.

"Hush, Lucy. Why don't you sit with me for a spell, hmm?"

Elsie felt an unpleasant jolt in the pit of her stomach when spied Lucy's ink-spill hair and her enormous blue eyes; it dawned on her then that this must be young Michael's daughter, his last and best legacy.

"Has she grazed her knees?" Elsie asked as Sarah reclaimed her seat.

"No- a bit shaken, is all." Sarah said softly, her chin on the child's dark curls as she fruitlessly searched her pockets for a handkerchief. Elsie was already leaning close, smiling reassuringly at the little girl as she dabbed at stray tears with cheap and serviceable cotton.

"There, now, I think we've learned a lesson, haven't we? Wee things like you ought not to play race horse, at least not until you've grown some."

Lucy blinked at her with those eyes and burrowed her face into her aunt's shoulder out of shyness. Sarah met Elsie's gaze over the child's head and smiled, slow and warm.

Elsie's heart knocked sharp against her ribs, and she dropped her eyes and carefully stroked Lucy's black hair.

"Such a lovely girl."

"Yes. She looks like him, you know. Just like him."

The smile faded from Sarah's face, leaving her eyes distant and dark. Elsie reached for her hand, unseen by any of the children, and twinned their work-worn fingers together.

* * *

Only the O'Brien-lings belong to me; Elsie Hughes and Sarah O'Brien are the creations of Julian Fellowes, Phyllis Logan and Siobhan Finneran.


	4. Three Moments

**Enamor**

The first time Elsie finds a posy of wildflowers on her bedside table, she thinkst nothing of it; true, Sarah doesn't strike her as the type to gather daisies and forget-me-nots and the like, but the Scot is willing to admit that her companion is a bit of mystery to her. She puts them in a glass of water and goes about her day.

And so life carries on. More tiny bouquets show up, violets and other lovely things that Elsie can't recall the names of. Bags of her favorite sweets begin appearing out of nowhere, and though Elsie clucks her tongue and mutters something about the budget at Sarah's back she still smiles.

One day Elsie finds that _someone _has slipped a new hair comb among her brush and pins, small but elegantly carved of some rich dark wood. She holds it in her hands, lets her fingers stroke down the teeth, and sighes.

She finds Sarah in their tiny kitchen making up the grocery list and Elsie tows her away from the counter with an arm around her hips and an air of sternness.

"You've gone soft, Sarah O'Brien." she says primly, holding the comb up for Sarah's inspection. The younger woman blinks when Elsie begins to gently draw the teeth over the curve of her neck, but manages a smug little look in the end.

"Wooing's not a crime, you know."

**Celebrate**

Sarah lounges against Elsie, lazily taking the sponge and trickling water over the shapely legs that are clasped so possessively around her person. Behind her, the Scot flickes through a day-old newspaper in studious silence. Steam rises up around them from their bathwater, carrying the scent of lavender and coaxing Sarah into a lovely drowsy place- surely there was no greater luxury than this?

"Oh my."

Sarah opens her eyes, recognizing the laugh behind the gravity of Elsie's voice.

"What's happened?"

"It seems that the House of Lords has finally decided that so-called 'acts of gross-indecency' between ladies are _not_ to be illegal after all."

"That's a relief." Sarah yawns, tilting her head back and absently running her pruning fingers up and down Elsie's thighs. "Shouldn't be able to sleep at night if I thought I was breakin' the law."

That sets them both to laughing, and the older woman tosses aside her paper in favor of draping her arms over her companion's shoulders. Sarah shudders as Elsie nips at her earlobe.

"A celebration of sorts is in order, wouldn't you say?"

**Unbind**

"Easy, darlin'."

Sarah goes slow, loosening Elsie's corset one lace at a time, her touch gentle. The other woman is unnaturally still under her hands, breathing deep and steady as Sarah goes about her work.

"Just hold on."

The telegram had come just this morning, and Sarah had known from the moment it was put in Elsie's hand. She'd wanted to burn it, wanted to throw her arms around her lover and put herself between her and the wretched thing, as if her mere physical presence could shield Elsie from what waited on their table.

It came anyway.

"There."

She slides the corset from around Elsie's waist and leaves her for a moment so that she might tuck it away.

The little moments of privacy were nearly as important as having someone with you, though Sarah can't say why.

She returns and says nothing when she finds Elsie shaking, head bowed low. Sarah bites the inside of her cheek until she tastes blood, a ferocious ache gnawing at her insides.

She wanted to say _I know darling, I know what this is, I know you in this moment and I lived and you'll live and_

"Come on, sweet."

Elsie follows her to bed and lays down as obediently as a child and dear Jesus, the tears have come at last, silent and unstoppable. Sarah crawls in beside her and held her, cradling Elsie's head to her breast and working her fingers into that thick dark hair.

Sarah keeps quiet and lets Elsie grieve in peace.

* * *

_In Celebrate, Elsie is referring to the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1921, which sought to make female homosexuality illegal but was shot down._


	5. So This is Christmas

It's Elsie's idea to celebrate Christmas, and it's Elsie who insists that Sarah bake festive biscuits for the shop and drags a small proud pine into their flat. She clucks at Sarah about decorations, and the younger woman shifts uneasily in her seat, muttering something about how it would be nice, this year, to just avoid the whole production. Sarah has always been too poor to afford the proper holiday enthusiasm, and can't see sense in throwing tinsel on everything now when they don't _have _to.

But then she sees how Elsie's smile fades in the face of her reluctance, and she can't ignore it when her shoulders bow forward slightly under the disappointment.

Sarah shuts up, and creates strings of popped corn to wind about the tree (their tree) to accompany the tinsel and spindly ornaments Elsie brings home. They find an angel, all uplifted eyes and flaxen curls, and they perch her on top, and Sarah resists the filthy comment that so desperately needs to be said.

The two of them spent more than ten Christmases at Downton, but never has Sarah seen Elsie beam as she does now, in their own sitting room before their own tree.

"My mother used to labor so over our tree when I was a girl," she murmurs, her eyes soft. "And she'd lift Minnie up to crown it when the time came, as she'd beg and beg so shamelessly."

And it sends tremors through Sarah's insides to hear her speak so freely of her long-ago girlhood. It's a rarity for Elsie to reveal anything of those days, preferring to let the details linger in shadow. What Sarah has been able to piece together through stray words and faded marks is something tarnished, too ugly to let out of the dark.

"It sounds lovely." She murmurs, and she comes up behind Elsie and holds her, anchors her here so she cannot slip away.

"Sometimes it was."

Elsie falls silent, leans back and trusts her weight to Sarah's body; the younger woman nuzzles at the older, a simple, animal way of saying _I am here._

The Scot claps her hands, all business, and gently disengages from Sarah's arms, bustling off to get together all the presents they've hoarded for their nieces and nephews (Elise has but two nieces, and Sarah has near a dozen plus the two lads- the lines between have blurred, and they dote with impunity ). Sarah is left alone and gives the tree a long, pensive look.

She is exhausted from their preparations and the posturing required in public, and all her joy is taken secondhand from the shine of Elsie's eyes, the up-curving bow of her soft lips- but it is worth it, more than worth it.

This Christmas shall be Elsie's loveliest.

* * *

Characters belong to Fellowes, some of Elsie's backstory belongs to Vee/Tartan Robes.


	6. So This is Christmas: Part II

She rises groggily from the depths of sleep, their bedroom filled with blue winter light as the sun rises outside their window. Yawning, Sarah rolls over and slides her arms around Elsie, tugging until the other woman is tucked into the curve of her body and her face is pressed into Elsie's neck.

"Merry Christmas, m'darlin' girl." She mumbles, and she nuzzles her nose against the nape of her neck. She is rewarded with a sleepy chuckle and a stretch of the back that has Elsie's lovely round arse pressing into her. Sarah's teeth close over the slope of a bared shoulder, which does not earn her a moan as she was hoping for, but rather a swat across the snout.

"None of that jus' now." Elise yawns; she turns over, drapes an arm over Sarah's waist, and the younger woman rolls her eyes. She keeps quiet, though, mostly because Elise's decided kissing isn't out of the question.

"And a merry Christmas to you as well, by the by."

The earliest bit of their Christmas morning passes slowly, the pair of them occupied with the exchange of familiar, cherished touches; here one suckles lazily at the hollow of an unguarded throat, and here the other nips at an earlobe, hides her face against a shoulder. It is a morning ritual they can't often indulge in, and for now they intend to savor the simple joy of holding and being held.

In time, though, Sarah tugs Elsie's hair, gentle-like, and playfully licks at the shell of her ear, muttering,

"Time for breakfast, don't you think?"

Elsie grumbles, pinches the plump flesh at the front of Sarah's belly, but eventually obliges.

"Fancy you of all people wanting to rise early." She says, shrugging into her dressing gown. Sarah smiles in her sly way and saunters after her, alight with anticipation despite the early hour. She makes sure Elsie can see her when she makes her way to the cabinet where she keeps the pots and pans, and she glances over her shoulder to see if she's watching as she takes out the package she secreted there. Elsie makes a noise of outrage.

"Sarah O'Brien, we _said _we wouldn't bother exchanging gifts!" Elsie cries indignantly, though Sarah can tell without looking that she's already settling down in the loveseat, feet tucked beneath her body for warmth.

"_You _said; I never agreed to it." Sarah sniffs, but she's smiling in triumph as she bustles back with the box balanced in her hands- it was a devil trying to hide it from her, the blasted woman being such a nutter about the cleaning and all.

"You spent too much." The Scot protests, and Sarah lays the present in her lap without ceremony.

"Oh, shut your mouth and be grateful," She says fondly, settling down beside Elsie on their sofa. "Besides, I made this meself- cuts out the cost of labor."

Elsie offers a few more token complaints as she carefully tears into the wrapping, and Sarah's breath catches in her chest as she lifts the lid and folds aside layers of tissue paper. Elsie glances down- gasps, presses her hand to her lips as she stares with wide eyes.

"Oh, _Sarah_."

Elsie lifts out the dress and the morning light catches the cloth, revealing velvet of a deep and noble blue, trimmed with delicate lace at the neckline and cuffs and cut to flatter. Elsie runs hesitant fingers over the vines embroidered in a softer blue on the bodice, fingers the silken underskirt. Sarah watches and waits, prickly with nerves, as Elsie slowly raises the sleeve to her cheek and rubs the cloth against her skin.

Sarah notices that her eyes are a little glassy.

"Sarah, it's beautiful. I can't imagine how long this took you…how hard you must have…" she trails off, worrying at her bottom lip, and Sarah worriedly leans forward to touch her cheek.

"Darlin', I was glad to do it, every stitch of it. Anythin' to see you out of those tired old funeral rags from Downton." She murmurs. Elsie smiles, hides it under a stern look.

"They aren't _rags_, they're perfectly serviceable."

"You deserve better'n _serviceable_." She whispers, cupping Elsie's chin in her palm. Those sad, fathomless eyes widen, and soft lips part, just a little. She looks almost fragile now, caught off guard with the gift and Sarah's words, what they imply (_you're as good as any lady, better, you ought to have the best but this is the closest I can give you)._

It's gone in the next moment when Elsie blinks and clears her throat, sitting straighter on the loveseat. She curls her hands around Sarah's wrists, smiles fondly.

"Well, thank you, Miss O'Brien. And thank you for not dressing me like one of those little Bolshevixens that are running around these days."

Sarah feels strangely sad as she folds her gift with care and rises- distance, even now?- but puts it from her mind. Breakfast will put everything to rights, she's sure.

Except Elsie isn't heading for the kitchen; she pads to their tree and reaches in among the branches, comes out with a tiny box wrapped in silvery paper balanced in her palm. There's a flutter in Sarah's belly, and she swallows.

"Look at you, you deceitful thing."

Elsie only smiles- a good one, the one that makes her eyes crease at the corners, her teeth flashing- and comes back. She takes Sarah's hand, presses the little box into her palm.

"It's not quite a new dress." She says, a little shyly. Sarah's heart kicks double-time against her ribs as she pulls the ribbon apart, lifts the lid. Her throat goes tight when she sees the locket nestled within; a silver oval, plain save for the elegant fern design etched onto the surface. There's a chain too, fine as gossamer, and Sarah almost doesn't want to touch it with her rough red hands.

"Oh."

There is a stinging in Sarah's eyes that she desperately tries to ignore as she glances up at her own Elsie, corner of her mouth lifting.

"S'lovely. Too lovely for me."

Elsie presses her fingertips to Sarah's lips, comfort and admonishment in one.

"No." is all she says, and Sarah shivers as a worn hand touches just beneath her jaw and caresses down the curve of her neck.

"It's a poor trinket when compared to you, my heart, but such a lovely neck needs some decoration."

Sarah bites the inside of her cheek against a smile, tongue-tied as a schoolgirl as she looks down at the locket again.

"Sit. I know just what I'll put in it."

She makes Elsie sit perfectly still as she retrieves a hairbrush, her own sewing scissors. She unbraids Elsie's hair, lets the lovely soft stuff run through her fingers as she draws the brush through again and again. Black as the good fertile earth it is, shot through with strands of white, and it smells so sweetly. Elsie sits patiently, running her fingers over the lines of her new dress like a child petting a kitten, and raises no objections when Sarah cuts a perfect curl from the rest.

Sarah opens her locket and tucks the curl between its doors. It stands stark against the silver, more precious by far.

"Thank you, Elsie."

The sight of her, black hair falling like water around her shoulders and smiling that smile, was enough to weaken Sarah's knees. Tenderly the older woman takes the locket from her, stands and moves behind her to clasp it around her neck.

Tenderly, she leans down and kisses the soft place where Sarah's pulse thunders.

"You are welcome, my love."


	7. The Spring Arrival

When it happens, it happens on a soft sweet morning late in spring. They're eating their breakfast together as usual, hands occasionally abandoning cups or forks in favor of touching a cheek, curling around a wrist. There is a knock from the front, and Elise leaves Sarah at the table with breakfast laid out neatly between them to answer the door; she returns a fifteen minutes later with Thomas trailing in her wake, too pale and strained around the eyes, and Sarah nearly chokes on her toast.

They interrogate him, of course, demand to know the whys and hows. He sits and eats from Sarah's plate (he wouldn't dare lay a hand on Mrs. Hughes' two eggs and two sausages, the idea itself nearly profane) and stares at the tabletop with shadow-ringed eyes. Sarah sees the red slash of a barely healed scar just near his hairline and draws a sharp breath, her stomach twisting. Elsie sees it too; she feels the older woman go still beside her, and a glance from the corner of her eye reveals hands that tremble, just a little, and lips pressed into a tight line.

Sarah knows where she's gone and throws aside the feelings of trepidation; she slides her arm around Elsie's waist and squeezes fiercely- Thomas' expression is a delight to behold, all wide eyes and slackened jaw. Sarah looks at him as though he's an idiot as Elsie fidgets beside her, uncomfortable with the position she's put them in but not pulling away, either.

"Come on then, Thomas. We haven't all morning."

Thomas hesitates, swallows down the rest of Sarah's cooling tea (bastard), and tells his tale. It begins with a strapping, golden boy with eyes like cobalt glass, and Sarah knows at once what's happened. The new footman was too beautiful, Thomas too lonesome. Despite having nearly thirty years and a stint in the trenches under his belt Thomas is still wet behind the ears, and can't read people half so well as Sarah or even Elsie can.

"He went to Carson, an' I was out by the end of the evenin' without a reference. I'm damned fortunate they didn't run for the constable." Thomas says, his voice dulled in defeat, and he looks at the women with something like resentment in his gaze. Instinctively, Elsie and Sarah press close together for reassurance, the slopes of their bodies meeting under layers of flannel nightdresses and care-worn dressing gowns. Their sort have it a little easier, if one defines 'easy' as being able to go unseen and unacknowledged for one's whole life; fact of the matter is that no one really keeps their eyes on the women of the world, much less lowly born women like Sarah O'Brien and Elsie Hughes. They can get away with more, in the long run.

"What are your plans?"

Elsie's voice is soft, not quite pitying but close enough. Thomas barks a bitter laugh and rakes his ruined hand through his hair. His eyes glitter in the light streaming through the window, something trembling on his eyelashes.

"Chuck myself in the nearest river, maybe? Find a sturdy tree branch?"

Sarah wants to hit him, partly for the fear in her own heart and partly for the little shudder his words send through Elsie's body. She settles for a glare and another arm around Elsie, holding her fast.

"That's a fine plan, after all the trouble you went to in gettin' here. Surely you've a reason for comin' to us."

Thomas only shakes his head and lets his shoulders hunch forward.

"I thought I'd find my feet again, but that's an idiot dream, isn't it? No one will hire a sod without a good reference."

The silence stretches like gossamer, and Elsie gently disengages Sarah's arms so that she might step forward. Her hand finds his shoulder.

"Not everyone."


	8. Errands

"Mrs. Hughes, five shillings for this bunch here is as fair as fair can be, ask anyone in town!"

"I don't believe that five shillings for these rather sorry sausages is _fair_, Mr. Brigg, and I refuse to lose money over inferior product."

"Hardly inferior, Mrs. Hughes!"

"If I recall rightly, Mr. Brigg, the sausages in this shop were a bit more substantial last year, and worthy of being priced at five shillings. It seems to me that you've cut down on the product and preserved the cost, and isn't that _unfortunate_?"

Sarah smiles serenely to herself as Mr. Brigg blusters at Elsie and glances about the shop, clearly hoping no one else is around to hear. She watches her Scot ruthlessly haggle the butcher down to three shillings for the sausages, and somehow wrangle an extra rasher out of him at a discount. Pride wells up within her, makes her eyes shine; Elsie has learned so much in the last few years, and it is gratifying to see her put the skills Sarah taught her to use.

"We'll be going now, Mr. Brigg. A pleasant afternoon to you. Sarah?"

Without even trying to stifle her smirk Sarah nods to the somewhat disoriented butcher and joins Elsie outside, basket swinging from her hand.

"Well done, darlin'." she says, and Elsie smiles slightly.

"I'm glad I've made some improvement in your eyes." she declares, casually drifting closer to Sarah and linking their arms together. "Not so long ago you despaired of me."

"Never despaired, love." she reassures her, and knocks her hip into Elsie's to prompt a laugh. There is nothing as nice as this, she thinks, walking down the sleepy street arm in arm with this woman, Elsie lovely and smiling in the spring light. There's no skulking about behind closed doors, no filthy looks being cast.

She doesn't pretend to herself that the townsfolk here would welcome two people like them with open arms, but she and Elsie don't have to lock themselves away, either. So long as discretion is used she can kiss Elsie's cheek and clasp her hand without fear, and the people believe what they want.

They're free here.

"What's next?" Sarah asks, leaning close as Elsie draws her neatly folded list from her pocket.

"The flour and eggs and butter have been taken care of, and we've just gotten our meat- that leaves the green grocer, then."

Their town's green grocer was housed in the same building as the dry-goods store-why, no one could guess, as the town wasn't so tiny as all that. Sarah suspected it was a deliberate go at cultivating the quaintness that the tourists loved so much.

A bell clangs overhead as they step inside, and the grocer calls a greeting to them.

"Let's get the cabbage and carrots first." Elsie suggests, and Sarah follows her to where the greens were displayed. The prices were to their satisfaction, and they loaded Sarah's basket with vegetables. Sarah catches Elsie looking contemplatively at a hefty cucumber and says, before she can stop herself,

"How impressive. Should I be jealous?"

Elsie freezes, throws her a nasty look, and makes to tuck the thing among the rest of the vegetables- Sarah twists away, moving the basket out of Elsie's reach with a grin.

"You promised me that there'd never be a cucumber in our house, Elsie. Said we left all the cucumbers behind when we left Downton."

"Sarah O'Brien, _lower your voice._"

"Why?" Sarah asks sweetly. "Just talking about produce. Nothing shameful in discussin' a good thick cucumber, is there?"

"You are a child." Elsie hisses, striding past her with an air of ladylike indignation. Smirking, Sarah follows in her wake, eyes scanning the shelves for inspiration.

"I believe we need more honey, Mrs. Hughes."

"There's enough in the pantry at home, Miss O'Brien. Three jars of it, in fact."

"Oh, but three is nowhere _near_ know how I love me sweet things, Mrs. Hughes. Like a little hummingbird, I am, drinking up all the nectar from the flower, day and night."

Sarah yelped when Elsie reached out with a covert hand and pinched her hard.

"Jaysus! What was that about?" Sarah demanded.

"There are others here, Sarah, they don't need to be subjected to…to your boorishness!"

"Hardly boorish." Sarah sniffed. "Considering what you were shoutin' at me this morning."

"_Sarah Meara O'Brien._"

Sarah laughed lightly, leaned in to kiss Elsie's blazing cheek.

"Alright, darlin'. I'll behave meself."


End file.
